My friends Paula and Pay Schnebly (maiden names) recently visited the Museum. Mr. Schnebly was my English teacher and their mother and my mother were good friends. The Schnebly’s lived with us during the rough weather because it was difficult to get back and forth to Sedona in the winter. My husband and our children lived out of state for so many years, but it is nice to have lovely memories.

O.K. Garretson, one of the early school principles, was a best friend of my father, and my mother had him to dinner and sewed on his shirt buttons. O.K. was a bachelor, met his wife, a Clemenceau third grade teacher, when my sister Beth attended her class. Later, Dean O.K. Garretson was my dean of Education at the University of Arizona when I was attending the U: 1951-55. My sister, Gwen Barker, was one of the first students at Clemenceau. She later taught English in the Jerome High School.

My Auntie pop (Nurse, Barkie Williams) nursed James Douglas when he was quite ill and lived in Jerome. Our dear friends the Langdon’s lived in a beautiful brick home just north of the Clemenceau Smelter. Their son was blind, but had God given talent of music. He played on a beautiful grand piano and had several of us, ages 3 and 4, in with our mothers and Mrs. Langdon, to hear him play and to learn to pick out the tunes and to use our small fingers. Years later, I also remember the Smelter coming down!

Our family had the Cottonwood Fuel and Feed in the early 1930’s. My aunt, Barkie Williams, delivered many of the population of the early Verde Valley. One of my good friends, Patricia MacArthur Rauh, here in Tucson, and many of my classmates there, were delivered by Aunty Pop (Williams).

Thank you for your work and for keeping alive a history of the valley that is so precious to so many.

My parents moved to Phoenix from El Paso in 1918. We lived in the vicinity of 12th St. & Indian School Road, which was a long distance from downtown Phoenix.

I was born in 1926, a few years before the beginning of the Great Depression (who said it was great?) Mother and Dad and their family of six knew how to treasure every item that was owned.

Dad had been in the construction business and obtained a job as a carpenter in the remodeling of the Arizona State Capital Building on West Washington Street. There was a remodeling in 1918 and another in 1930; I do not know which one he was involved in. He retrieved (I say retrieved rather then something less honorable) a pair of solid brass doorknobs with the Seal of the Great State of Arizona deeply embossed in each of them. These were placed among his treasured rock and mineral specimens in his workshop behind the house. He knew how often I looked at and admired those door knobs.

He would bring home various pieces of lumber and other reusable items from almost every job he worked on. He was a pack rat and our yard looked a private junkyard most of the time.

He mounted one of the door knobs on a piece of beautiful, polished ironwood from the black root of a dead ironwood tree in the desert. This was presented to me for some special holiday (now forgotten by me.) Shortly before he died he gave me the second one because he felt they should be kept together. The doorknobs are my legacy. These were admired by my Daughter when she was growing up and then by my Grandchildren when they came to visit.

In 1999 there was an article in the Prescott Courier about work going on at the State Capital Building to restore it to its original beauty. I immediately thought of my favorite conversation pieces, the Sacred Doorknobs. I called the museum at the Capital and ask if they would like to have them to use in the restoration work. They were interested, so I mailed them to be displayed at their original home – after the hiatus of seventy or possibly eighty two years. They are on display in the Capital Museum – with Ray E. Pringle’s name and the story of their past history.

I did not want to leave this world and the Sacred Doorknobs until I could rest assured that they were a permanent piece of Arizona History.

The next morning I heard the cook rattlin the pots and pans, so I got up, rolled up my bedroll, and started over to the fire, I looked at my watch and it was 15 minutes after 2:00am. Well, my bedroll was already rolled up, so I went over and poured me a cup of coffee. The cook said, “Well kid, you better go wrangle the horses”. Heck, I hadn’t kept a horse in, so I took off a foot in the general direction I thought they ought to be-I walked 1/2 of Yavapai County looking for those horses. Finally I decided if they needed horses before daylight somebody else had better go get them; because I can’t find them. I headed back toward camp and man was I lucky the horses came in ahead of me-I never told anyone I hadn’t found them. Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good!

Since then I have done day work for just about every ranch on this side of Mingus Mountain in Yavapai County including present day work on the Grosetta Ranch.

Eduardo P. Contreras (her future husband) owned a small ranch in Wild Horse Basin near Hillside, AZ along with his brother, Ramon in the early 1900’s. Inocentie was a young girl, 17, that lived in Signal, AZ with her mother and siblings. Her uncle, Epiphanio Leivas (Grandma Tula’s brother), knew Eduardo and wanted him to meet his niece. He brought Eduardo to Signal so that he could meet his niece. Eduardo promptly asked if he could write to Inocentie when he went back home. Of course, Inocentie said yes! They developed a long distance love connection through letters written in Spanish. As some time passed he knew that he wanted Inocentie to be his wife. Eduardo had his mother, Oriola Castro Contreras, write a letter to Tula Lievas (Inocentie’s mother) to ask for her hand in marriage. That was the custom of the time.

The offer of marriage was accepted by Inocentie and her mother, so they decided to marry with a county judge presiding. But Eduardo’s mother, Orioloa, would have none of that and insisted that they be married by a Catholic priest. Of course there were no Catholic churches anywhere near so they arranged for a priest (Rev. C. Mandiz) to come from Kingman, AZ in the mail truck to perform the marriage in Signal. Aunt Felicita Contreras (Eduardo’s sister) and her cousin Lucy Monreal (Angelina Monreal’s daughter) traveled from Prescott to Signal to help with the wedding preparation. They set up a makeshift altar at the ranch in keeping with a traditional Catholic wedding. The wedding took place September 16, 1910. Eduardo was 32 years of age and Inocentie was only 18. Their witnesses were Epifanio Leivas (Inocentie’s uncle) and Felicita Contreras. They received a cow as a wedding present with the EHO brand given to them by A.C. (Tot) Young from Skull Valley.

Uncle Ramon decided to sell his share of the ranch to Eduardo. After a short time, Eduardo’s bride Inocentie, became pregnant with their first child, Irene. They decided to sell the ranch and move back to Yavapai county to be near the rest of her family. Irene was born July 7, 1911. After the birth of Manuel in 1912, they took advantage of the American dream and applied for a homestead in 1914 near Skull Valley 15 miles west of Prescott. The ranch included 155 acres of deeded land and 15 sections of forest permit below the west side of Granite Mountain known as Tonto Flat. That is where the rest of their children were born; Edward (1914), Catherine (1919), Raymond (1918), Angie (1921), Marcella (1925), Adela (1930), and Richard (1934).

Recorded by: Cara Contreras Welch (daughter of Edward M. Contreras). Other facts were added from old articles from the Prescott Evening Courier.

During the dust storms, we would stand in the dirt street and let the sand and small rocks blast our legs – children do some strange things just for entertainment.. We would swing over the irrigation ditches on the low branches of the cottonwood trees. Occasionally a rattlesnake would come in with the irrigation water. We drove to Prescott by way of Bumblebee, Wickenburg then up Yarnell Hill which was a two lane highway and came into Prescott by way of the White Spar road-I always got car sick from all the twists and turns.

As a teenager, a group of us came to Prescott to the Smoki snake dances. After working 45 years of my adult life, I decided I had enough of the heat in Phoenix and moved to Prescott. The week I came to Prescott, the temperature in Phoenix was 123. I am grateful every day for enjoying the wonderful weather in Prescott. I would not consider living any place other than the State of Arizona and in Prescott.

Judge Jack Ogg was president of the board at the time and called on Mrs. J.P.McNally to ask the Medical Auxiliary to sponsor a fund raising event. Olivia then called me to say the Auxiliary was going to have a Holiday Charity Ball for the hospital, and I was the chairman.Thanks to Kiekeffer’s evergreen trees, everybody’s tree lights and card tables, APS installation of temporary additional power, special dispensation from the State’s Attorney to serve alcoholic beverages, etc, we decorated the armory, false ceiling and all, for dancing to a 14 piece band. The doctors underwrote the first event, and we raised $4,000.00.

The popular event continued for sixteen more years to help support the hospital which combined with the County Hospital at Whipple and Miller Valley Road using the government’s Hill Burton funds which became available after WWII. Progressive expansion as a hospital district required the current name change to Yavapai Regional Medical Center, and it’s been a remarkable transition from the original county hospital at the site, with it’s milk cow and produce garden, to the National award winning facility of today.